How the world might end

How might the world end?  St. John in the Apocalypse prophecies a rather ghastly end to the world, but with the consolation that at least the good will be transported to a better place to live in peace and harmony.

But scientists also ask how our earth, our galaxy, and even the universe might end.  Their hypotheses don’t have “And they lived happily ever after” endings either, but at least  up to now most of the possibilities lie comfortably millions of years in the future:

The sun won’t burn out for another four billion years and by that time, if  descendants of Homo sapiens are still around, they might have established some outposts in other galaxies.

The universe might expand into infinity, or it might collapse back into an infinitessimally tiny dot of energy, it might keep expanding and contracting forever, or it might reach an equilbrium and stay just the way it is.

Today, however, the papers are featuring two “the-end-of-life-on-earth possibilities that are a little less distant.

The first is the possibility of a supernovae explosion in our neighbourhood that would destroy earth’s ozone layer.  Astronomers from Villanova University in Pennsylvania said the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite shows a white dwarf star that is sucking in gas and steadily growing.  In the process, it has released small blasts of energy called novas every 20 years or so.   These burps stopped in 1967.  But when the star reaches a critical mass the star will blow up in asupernova blast.   The star is over 3,000 light years away, but the blast could destroy earth’s protective ozone cover, exposing it to deadly radiation.  As one writer put it, “it would frazzle the earth.”

At the moment, although scientists say it could happen “soon,” “soon” in galactic terms does not seem to mean this week.  They aren’t suggesting we all run for radiation cover for another million years or so.

The second end-of-the-world scenario covered in the news today is the possibility of a huge methane explosion that could devastate earth’s oxygen supply.  Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more warming than carbon.  Huge amounts of it are stored in bogs, in the seabed and ice caps.

The melting ice caps could be the problem where the release of methane has accelerated.  The rates of release are not lethal at this point, but there is cautious concern that a vicious circle could accelerate:  as methane is released with global warming, global warming is thereby increased, leading to faster methane releases leading to… etc.

A mega-methane explosion has been fingered as the cause of at least one of the five major extinctions that we know have taken place on the planet.  Major extinctions are catastrophes not to be taken light.  They usually last millions of years and each have wiped out between 75 and 95% of all the species living anywhere on the planet.

Unlike the supernova explosion, we might be able to actually do something to reduce the possibility that this worst-case-scenario will occur.

How bad could a flu pandemic be?

Officials in countries as far away from each other as the United States and New Zealand announced today that cases of swine flu had been identified among several residents who had recently returned from Mexico.  In Mexico itself, at least 80 people have died, and hundreds have become sick.

What is worrisome about swine flu is that it is caused by a hybrid virus taken from bird, pig, and human sources.  The last flu of this mix was the Spanish flu which began in 1918 and killed some 29 million people, about twice as many as died during World War I which had just ended.

Could Mexican swine flu be as deadly as the Spanish flu almost a century ago?

Unlike most flu strains, the Spanish flu was most deadly among young, healthy adults, and there is some evidence that the Mexican swine flu may be developing along a similar pattern.  To make matters worse, world-wide travel is much more wide spread than it was in 1920, making the potential spread of this potentially infectious disease terrifyingly rapid.

On the other hand, thus far, swine flu is not nearly as lethal as Spanish flu.  And should it develop into a killer flu, the world now has anti-viral drugs on a scale that were not available to combat the Spanish flu.

So a swine flu pandemic could be very very bad.  But maybe it won’t be.

Mother nature’s weapons of mass destruction

This week several of nature’s most deadly attacks have reminded us that occasionally there is a high price for calling Earth our home.  It’s an amazing place, if only because it is the only place in the universe we know of at this point where people like us could survive.  But we don’t live here without cost.

The earthquake that struck L’Aquila in central Italy has killed at least several hundred people and left tens of thousands homeless.  This isn’t the first or worst earthquake Italy has experienced, and it will not be its last.

Like San Francisco and Tokyo, among many others, it is where several tectonic plates are pushing against each other.  As they float inexorably in opposite directions, pressure builds up, and earthquakes are what happens when something finally snaps.  

Tsunamis, volcanoes, and earthquakes are all the result of living on the surface of a dynamic planet.  If we didn’t have these deadly eruptions, the surface of Earth would gradually be worn smooth, and water would cover the entire surface.  There wouldn’t be any land not covered by water anywhere.

So the price of keeping our world habitable on the most basic level is sometimes lethal to hundreds of thousands of people in just a few minutes, the product of an unexpected gigantic upheaval from the bowels of the earth.

Who owns the rain?

Scientists have been warning for at least a decade that eventually humans were going to start fighting over water.  Not fighting over water for golf courses, swimming pools, and lawns, but fighting to get enough water to drink, wash, and stay healthy.

Despite the long-term water shortages in western United States, especially in California, but I was  astounded to discover that there are states in America where the rain that falls onto a person’s private property is not theirs.  It is illegal to catch it in rain barrels and use it to grow vegetables or flush the toilet.  That’s because some states have passed laws saying that the rain belongs to farmers and water companies who have bought rights to it, and so homeowners have no right to collect it.

Harvesting rainwater is illegal in some parts of Africa.  I had no idea it was illegal in some parts of the United States of America.

Currently the law is being challenged in the Colorado courts.  Whatever the outcome, as global warming increases desertification and the sources of drinkable water decline, there is going to be a shortage of water to meet our basic needs.  This catastrophe won’t happen in a single overnight explosion, eruption, wave, or crash.  

But it would be a catastrophe of no mean proportions nonetheless.

http://www.truthout.org/031909EA

Yellowstone could lead to a unique vacation

A bubbling supervolcano hotspot is under what is today Yellowstone National Park in Montana.  Geysers of hot water and steam gush to the surface throughout the park, a constant reminder of what lies below.  Sometimes the thermal explosions are seriously dangerous and have killed people who got caught in the outburst.

Since Christmas, geologists have been recording an unusual number of  earthquakes underneath the park.  The activity was significant enough to note, though at this point, they do not think it signals an imminent supervolcanic eruption.

If it did, volcanic ash would cover most of the continental United States, and probably plunge the world into a volcanic winter.

If you are short of something to worry about, Yellowstone might help fill the void.  The supervolcano under Yellowstone has been erupting on average every 600,000 years for the last 16 million years.    The last time it exploded was 630,000 years ago.  

It’s a little overdue.

www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1869313,00.html